


An Ending (The Beginning)

by Ailu_Citrino



Series: Of Kittens and Lightning Bolts [1]
Category: DCU, The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Aunt Cat AU, Author is also not from the us or knowledgeable in law or how this things function whatsoever, Barbara Gordon is Batgirl, Characters other than Barry and Selina are either briefly there or just mentioned, Dick Grayson is Robin, Gen, Selina Kyle is Catwoman, Selina is Nora's sister, author is not an english speaker, so just ignore any inaccuracies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:01:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27743392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ailu_Citrino/pseuds/Ailu_Citrino
Summary: It wasn't fair, and she knew life hardly was, but she couldn't help but think that it was Nora who should be helping Barry, tucking him in bed and telling him everything would be alright, Nora, who had always had a soft spot for kids, and a heart too big for the streets of the Alley, Nora, who was-No. She couldn't start thinking about it.Or, the AU where Selina Kyle is Nora Allen's younger sister, and how this changes things, starting with the aftermath of an impossible event.
Relationships: Barry Allen & Henry Allen & Nora Allen, Barry Allen & Selina Kyle
Series: Of Kittens and Lightning Bolts [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2029429
Comments: 2
Kudos: 35





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is both the fist fanfic i've ever published, and the first i've ever written in english, so please, if i make any mistakes let me know so i can fix themm and keep improving!

They wouldn't let him see his dad.

No matter how much he begged, or cried, or told everyone what he'd seen, they wouldn't let him see his dad.

They all said that he had killed his mom, but that wasn't true, Barry knew what happened, if they would just  _ listen _ .

But they just walked past him, or told him that he was imagining things, that his dad was a murderer, that he's a liar. He thinks the worst are the ones that don't say anything, the ones that just stand near muttering about him like he can't hear them, and  _ did you hear? His father stabbed his wife in their living room, they said he saw everything, poor thing _ . But no matter how many people tried to talk to him, how many people asked him what he  _ actually _ saw, or how many looked at him with pity from across the room, no one actually  _ listened to him _ .

It had been hours since the police took him from his home, and he was tired. It was late, and he didn't know what would happen to him now. Joe West, Iris' father had told him that he could stay with them, but he hadn't seen him since. He lifted his head when he heard a commotion from the doors.

"Listen to me" the voice was familiar, feminine, and more angry that he had ever heard "you're going to take me to him right now"

"Listen lady" Joe's voice was tense "I don't know who you think you are, but you're not going to talk to him, he needs to give his statement, and then he's going home"

"And who agreed to this? You can't tell me that you have an eleven year old unsupervised, you're going to do what I say right now, detective. I'm this boy family, and if you  _ think _ you can keep him from me-"

"Because you were Henry's friend? Newsflash, lady, the guy just murdered his wife-"

"Because I am  _ Nora's sister _ , so you're going to step aside, and let me talk to my nephew" The police officers moved, and for a second, Barry had a clear view of the situation. He didn't think, he stood up and ran.

"Aunt Selina!" He collided with her, he was tall enough to hug her waist, and he felt her arms around him, her hand running through his hair.

"Here you are, kitten" Barry looked up in time to see her face Joe "Let me introduce myself, detective West, I'm Selina Kyle, I'm Barry's aunt" Joe took her hand, looking at Barry. He frowned when Selina started to walk, taking him with her further into the precinct, but didn't object. Soon enough, Barry and Selina were in a more secluded corner. She kneeled before him.

"Now, kitten, how are you feeling?"

Barry winced. He knew this was coming. First she'd ask about his mom, and then, she'd tell him that his dad did it, and then she'd try to convince him to tell the officers about it, about how his dad was the one who put that knife in his mom's chest and-

"He didn't do it!" He shouted before he could think better of it. The officers around startled, but mostly left him be, they'd heard him say the same thing multiple times now. He kept talking before his aunt could interrupt "it wasn't him, I saw it, it was the man in the lightning!" He looked up, but his aunt didn't seem angry at his outburst, or upset, like some of the officers had been when he refused to change his story.

"The man in the lightning, kitten? Why don't you start from the beginning?" She sounded honest. Not like she was waiting for him to slip out and let out that it  _ had _ been his dad, not like she thought he was making up a ridiculous story, she sounded like she wanted him to tell her what happened, so he started talking.

"Mom had just put me in bed, she and dad were talking downstairs, and I heard a sound, it was like a crash, I thought something happened, so I went to check and" here it was, if he kept talking, would she think he was lying too? Would she give her that disappointed look Joe had, hidden behind pity while he talked to one of the women there, saying words like  _ shock _ and  _ traumatic experience _ ? He looked at the floor and continued "it was like there was a tornado inside the house, things were flying everywhere, and there was this… this  _ blur _ " he choked, he could see it every time he closed his eyes, those red eyes glowing, looking at him, before everything became blurry and he appeared twenty blocks down the street "it was like a ball of lightning, and there was a man there, his eyes glowed red. Dad told me to run and then I was outside home and I went back running, but the police were there! They told me that dad had done it, but that's not true!" He couldn't look at his aunt's eyes.

"Alright"

"What?" He looked up, surprised. But his aunt didn't look mad, she didn't look disappointed, she didn't look at him like he was a  _ liar _ .

"If you say that you saw a man in lightning, then you saw a man in lightning. As far as i know, it’s a first for Central, but I've seen stranger things in Gotham. It's hard to be more weird than a man who dresses as a bat to fight a giant lizard man at three am" Her tone was joking, but she looked at him warmly and put a hand on his shoulder "It sounds weird, yes. But I believe you"

The rest was just a blur. Barry knew his aunt talked to the policemen, and then Joe, about something, but with the relief of his aunt believing him came the exhaustion, it was late, and he should have been in bed hours ago, so when Selina offered to pick him out, he agreed gratefully and dozed off with his head in her shoulder. At some point the white walls of the station turned into the champagne of Selina’s hotel room.

He became more alert when his aunt tried to tuck him into bed, afraid of closing his eyes, of letting his aunt out of his sight, of red eyes glowing and a wine glass broken in the carpet. In the end, he fell asleep with his aunt’s arms around him, and tears running across his cheeks.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to confess that the last batfam-related piece of medie that i watched was Batman Ninja, so my characterization of everyone here is mostly from whatever i remember from the bits and pieces of movies/comics/tv shows and fanfiction, so there's that, you're warned.

Selina paced across the small room thinking what to do. In the bed, the small form of her nephew hugged her pillow to his chest. 

Barry had started crying the moment she had tucked him in bed, refusing to go to sleep, afraid that if he closed his eyes, even for a second, someone would come and take the last of his family away. It broke her heart to see him like this.

It wasn't fair, and she knew life hardly was, but she couldn't help but think that it was Nora who should be helping Barry, tucking him in bed and telling him everything would be alright, Nora, who had always had a soft spot for kids, and a heart too big for the streets of the Alley, Nora, who was-

No. She couldn't start thinking about it. Even when you lived a lifestyle like hers, death took you by surprise, and if she started thinking about her sister  _ who's dead, and maybe if you had accepted her invitation to stay at her house, she wouldn't be _

_ Or maybe _ , she told the voice in her head,  _ I would be dead too and Barry would have no one _ .

She couldn't let her grief get the best of her, if she started crying now she would break down, and there were things she needed to do.

First, she walked to her purse and took her mobile phone. She dialed the number from memory, instead of looking for it through her contacts. She needed those few seconds to center herself.

It ringed, once more, she almost thought no one would answer when

"Wayne Residence*

"Alfred"

"Miss Kyle, I wasn't expecting a call, should I direct you to Master Bruce?" A voice sounded in the background and Selina made a split second decision

"Actually, I wanted to talk to Dick"

Dick was sixteen, almost seventeen, and Selina remembered being that age, running across rooftops with Nora. 

It was a different time, when the Bat was still an idea, and the rooftops of Crime Alley neutral ground, Nora and Selina looked at the people from above the warmer nights, the nights they didn't have to worry about food, and talked about going somewhere,  _ anywhere _ that wasn't Gotham with her crime filled streets and a sky that was so filled with smog that you could never see the stars.

Selina remembered when Nora decided to move for real. Getting her bachelor's degree had been hard, and she was determined to not let it go to waste, and Selina knew her sister would be able to do whatever she put her mind on. She had made her first big heist at sixteen, set on paying her twenty three and a half years old sister her bus ticket to Central.

Nora had begged her to come, to stay with her, to finish her education in Central City, but the moment Selina had gotten out with that diamond pendant she had been hooked. The adrenaline rush, the excitement from stealing it and no one being none the wiser, she had looked at the sparkling necklace in her hand and smiled. Her sister hadn't been thrilled when she figured where the money had come from, when she found a pair of earrings hidden in the pocket of her favourite coat, but they were from the same streets, and she understood. She hadn't been caught since.

A part of her had wanted to show her sister that she could. With their seven years age difference, Nora had more often than not acted as a mother than a sister, and Selina wanted her to see that she  _ could _ live on her own, that no matter how much Gotham fought and tried to bring her down, she would succeed. Sometimes she wondered what would have happened if she had moved to Central with her.

Mostly, she remembered the feeling of wanting to be her own person, under the shadow of the sister that had managed to get to  _ college _ and the pressure of the streets.

"H'llo, Selina" Dick sounded tired, and she realized that it was late, not so late he should have finished patrol, but late enough that if he wasn't running across rooftops he should probably be in bed

"Hello Dick, I'm sorry about the time, I didn't realize how late it was"

"It's okay, I have an exam on Monday, so B made me stay" He sounded grumpy about it, and it almost made her smile

"Something happened here in central" She heard rustling, like he was readying himself to bolt "I need a hand to get some information, but I don't want Bruce involved" She'd said it to pique his attention, but the more she thought about it the more she realized it was true. Bruce meant well, but he could never leave an issue alone. If she mentioned that she needed information he wouldn't rest until he knew every detail of the case, and as much as she admired him, if Barry knew the Batman was invested in his mom's murder, he would never rest until he involved himself, and after tonight, Selina didn't think she could handle her nephew in any form of danger.

"Do you need me to look something up for you?" Dick's voice startled her away from thoughts of Barry and his very probable scientific interest in Scarecrow's fear gas.

"Actually, yes. There's a small bakery" Nora had called her the day it had opened, complaining good naturedly about the pounds she'd get from their muffins alone and laughing at the seemingly excessive security for a business like that "that should have a couple of cameras facing the streets. I think one of them might have caught something"

"Alright, we'll see what I can do, what's the name of the bakery? And what are we looking for?" She smiled at the slip while she gave him the name, she suspected from the beginning that Dick wouldn't do it alone. He was good with computers, but if someone could access remotely the bakery's cameras and leave undetected it would be the so-called Batgirl. Besides, his crush on the girl was both adorable and extremely obvious to anyone who spent more than two minutes with him.

Then she registered the second question and her gaze fell involuntarily in the small boy in the bed. She remembered the fear in his face when she told her what he had seen, the terror in his eyes when he described the man,  _ Nora's murderer, _ to her. She cursed the policemen in her head for not seeing how  _ scared _ he had been, for keep pushing, and shuddered at the image her mind had conjured  _ a man in yellow, with glowing red eyes, encased in a blur of lightning while he stood besides her sister's body _ . She took a breath and said "Don't worry about it, Dick. If it's there, you'll know when you see it"

When she finally ended the call, it was with resolution. Whatever had killed her sister was still there, and she'd be damned if she let it get anywhere close to her nephew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please let me know if there are any mistakes, i don't have a beta, and i might have missed some things. Thanks for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Please leave your opinions in the comments, if you want to contact me for any reason, i'm [ailu-citrino](https://ailu-citrino.tumblr.com/) on tumblr, thanks for reading!


End file.
